THE reaction to Saturday’s piece on women’s football has been quite incredible but I can assure you I meant it tongue-in-cheek.

Hands up, it was a spectacular OG and I want to apologise unreservedly to anyone who was offended.

Particularly Scottish Women’s Football.

In 15 years as a Daily Record columnist it has never been my objective to deliberately upset readers – that’s a totally pointless exercise – and I’ve only tried to have a laugh, a joke and a carry-on.

You’ll never see me being wheeled into the Newsnight Scotland studio to pontificate on the burning issues in Scottish football.

I’ve never expected anyone to take my column too seriously (try elsewhere in the paper for that sort of stuff) and I suppose my patter’s a bit like a bride on her wedding day – something old, something new, something borrowed and, yes, something blue.

More often than not, my sense of humour – just like my choice of music and my Nokia 3210 – is a wee bit old fashioned.

I actually enjoyed the emails that took the p*** out of yours truly.

And one of the Motherwell players kindly offered to get me two tickets for the next women’s international match at Fir Park.

Someone else suggested I was only hacked off because the Scottish ladies scored seven goals at Fir Park and I can only dream of Motherwell repeating such a feat.

Fair dos. Can’t argue with that.

I was annoyed at reports of a “Twitter outcry” and I’ll tell you why.

In another column just three days earlier – in which I praised the 2500 Lanarkshire schoolkids who took part in a 6k fun run at Strathclyde Park last Sunday – I mentioned that the St Andrew’s Hospice in Airdrie needs £50,000 of public donations every single week just to keep its doors open.

How come there has been no Twitter outcry about that?

As a married man with a lovely wee daughter, I was hurt by the “misogynist” nonsense (do folk really think I hate my wife and wean?)

As for the “sexism” stuff, the first thing I did when I finally sat behind the wheel – at the grand old age of 43 – was turn the old women drivers’ jokes on their head and start taking the mickey out of myself.

By the way, girls, my wife says she has never met a sexist misogynist who’s as good with a Dettol Wipe in the kitchen.

The level of abuse from some quarters got a wee bit scary, to be honest, but I’ve still tried to respond to every email (even the odd one that resorted to using the c-word).

I’ve even got back to the ones that begin: “I never actually read your column but ...”

Actually, I might even join Twitter so I can reply to the person who was apparently offended by personal insults – and then called me “a fat, specky b*****d”!

That’s fine. If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.

However, I was stunned by one email that said: “You’d never have a go at the Scotland men’s team.”

Oh please. Where have you been for the past couple of decades?

One reader thinks my article will only make more people support women’s football.

And I honestly think that would be terrific.

It would be great if something positive emerged from what wasn’t my finest hour.

Fresh from that 7-0 win against Bosnia on Thursday night, of course I’d like the Scottish women to qualify for the World Cup.

Apart from anything else, I will be six feet under by the time the men have done it.

Incidentally – and this is something that I had completely forgotten about – one of my old neighbours got in touch to ask: “Didn’t your wee sister play football?”

Yep. Spot on. And she was a cracking wee player who once scored a 25-yard screamer for the Calder Primary team in Motherwell.

Unfortunately, though, she wasn’t allowed to play football when she went to the big school.

That was a 1980s thing. A bit like my humour, perhaps. Like the schools, however, I shall try to update my act.

Another email I received over the weekend said: “You should remind them of the time on radio you said Julie Fleeting should be in the Scotland men’s team as she’s better than many of the guys.”

I’d forgotten about that as well.

As you can imagine, I’ve already received several offers to attend a few training sessions with women’steams but I think I’ll pass as I now appreciate how much it would please some people if I suffered a massive heart attack.

However, having sensed a recurring theme in a lot of your emails with regard to the poor funding in women’s football, here’s what I will do.

As well as apologising once again for Saturday’s column – I’d like to make a donation to Scottish Women’s Football.

Call it a peace offering ladies.

In the meantime, I’ll take my medicine and lick my wounds.

I’ve often said I wouldn’t open the curtains if a women’s football match was being played in my back garden.